Did the Exodus occur?

[Agnostic75]

Consider the following:

The Exodus - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

It seems to me that the supposed Exodus did not occur.

Regarding William F. Albright, elsewhere, Wikipedia says:

In the years since his death, Albright's methods and conclusions have been increasingly questioned. Fellow Biblical archaeologist William Dever notes that "[Albright's] central theses have all been overturned, partly by further advances in Biblical criticism, but mostly by the continuing archaeological research of younger Americans and Israelis to whom he himself gave encouragement and momentum.......The irony is that, in the long run, it will have been the newer "secular" archaeology that contributed the most to Biblical studies, not "Biblical archaeology."

 

[Saint Frankenstein]

No, it didn't happen. I thought this was settled by now.

 

[Agnostic75]

If the Ten Plagues occurred, they would have been the biggest news stories in that part of the world by far. Some Christians claim that the Ipuwer papyrus mentions the Ten Plagues, but most experts disagree. Wikipedia says:

Some have interpreted the document as an Egyptian account of the Plagues of Egypt and the Exodus in the Old Testament of the Bible, and it is often cited as proof for the Biblical account by various religious organisations.

The association of the Ipuwer Papyrus with the Exodus as describing the same event is generally rejected by Egyptologists. Roland Enmarch, author of a new translation of the papyrus, notes: "The broadest modern reception of Ipuwer amongst non-Egyptological readers has probably been as a result of the use of the poem as evidence supporting the Biblical account of the Exodus." While Enmarch himself rejects synchronizing the texts of the Ipuwer Papyrus and The Book of Exodus on grounds of historicity, in The reception of a Middle Egyptian poem: The Dialogue of Ipuwer.. he acknowledges that there are some textual parallels "particularly the striking statement that 'the river is blood and one drinks from it' (Ipuwer 2.10), and the frequent references to servants abandoning their subordinate status (e.g. Ipuwer 3.14–4.1; 6.7–8; 10.2–3). On a literal reading, these are similar to aspects of the Exodus account." Commenting on such attempts to draw parallels, he writes that "all these approaches read Ipuwer hyper-literally and selectively" and points out that there are also conflicts between Ipuwer and the Biblical account, such as Ipuwer's lamentation of an Asiatic (Semitic) invasion rather than a mass departure. He suggests that "it is more likely that Ipuwer is not a piece of historical reportage and that historicising interpretations of it fail to account for the ahistorical, schematic literary nature of some of the poem's laments," but other Egyptologists disagree (see Genre section above). Examining what Enmarch calls "the most extensively posited parallel", the river becoming blood, he notes that it should not be taken "absolutely literally" as a description of an event but that both Ipuwer and Exodus might be metaphorically describing what happens at times of catastrophic Nile floods when the river is carrying large quantities of red earth, mentioning that Kitchen has also discussed this phenomenon.

 

[AmbiguousGuy]

It's like the question, "Did Jesus exist?" or "Did the flood happen?"

No, not as portrayed in the Bible. Yes, some historical event probably inspired the stories.

In the case of the Exodus, two disgruntled expats in Egypt threw down their tools, walked up north across the desert to go back home, murdered a Canaanite and took his property... and began calling themselves the new owners of the whole place.

Something like that is what I'm guessing.

So did the Exodus happen? Beats me. Yes and no, take your pick.

 

[Levite]

Did the Exodus happen precisely, in every detail, as described in the Bible. Probably not, according to the best guesses of current archaeological theory. But theories can change, new evidence be discovered.

Even if not, I think there is at least a grain of truth at the heart of the stories. And that's enough.

 

[CynthiaCypher]

I think it was just a few Levite families who left Egypt and joined up with a confederation of Canaanite pastoralist tribes who live in the hills of Canaan.

 

[outhouse]

"As written" the exodus did not happen.


Israel Finkelstein claims it is factual that the highlands were settled by a slow migration of displaced Canaanites.


These people use the Canaanites gods and they used the Canaanite alphabet.


We don't even start to see a different cultural identity until roughly 1000BC.

 

[nazz]

No, it didn't happen. I thought this was settled by now.

Those who take the Bible as literal historic fact will never accept that.

 

[outhouse]

Did the Exodus happen precisely, in every detail, as described in the Bible. Probably not, according to the best guesses of current archaeological theory. But theories can change, new evidence be discovered.

Even if not, I think there is at least a grain of truth at the heart of the stories. And that's enough.

I leave the possibility open for a historical core, but as of now, there is nothing at all that gives the exodus any historicity what so ever.

 

[technomage]

Even if not, I think there is at least a grain of truth at the heart of the stories. And that's enough.

The "grain of truth" in the stories is thus: the Hebrew-speaking nations (both Israel and Judah) developed from, and separated from, indigenous Canaanite tribes. Israel developed in Iron Age II, during the 9th century BCE, and became a local power, competing with Egypt for economic and political power--not very successfully, but independent enough to survive as a culture and a nation. Judah developed somewhat later (emerging in the 9th century BCE), and enjoyed a relatively brief period as a semi-client state of Assyria, then of Babylon.

Many of the pericopes of the Exodus accounts come from Judah, and reflect the tension between Judah's economic and political dependence upon its northern neighbors and the sometimes-cold, sometimes hot relationship with Egypt, and to some extent with Israel. Indeed, most of the law narratives deal with Judahic concerns, not Israelite. Recent finds of both casually hunted and farm-raised pork in Israel sites demonstrate the prohibition against pork, for instance, was formalized first in Judah, with only limited acceptance in Israel. (The issue of abstinence from pork was not the sole province of Judah, as there are also several Aramaean sites with a complete absence of pork bones.)

Israel was destroyed in 722, its population deported and assimilated within Assyria. Judah attained regional dominance with the destruction of Israel, but wrebelled against the Neo-Babylonian empire and was destroyed in 586. However, unlike Israel, Judah retained cultural cohesiveness during the Babylonian captivity, and was allowed to return shortly after the Persians conquered the Neo-Babylonian empire.

The Hebrews were NEVER in Egypt. There were no plagues, no Exodus, no wandering in the desert, no Conquest, and no United Monarchy.

 

[Agnostic75]

Did the Exodus happen precisely, in every detail, as described in the Bible. Probably not, according to the best guesses of current archaeological theory. But theories can change, new evidence be discovered.

Even if not, I think there is at least a grain of truth at the heart of the stories. And that's enough.

My main interest is whether or not God caused the Exodus, and the Ten Plagues to occur. Are you aware of any credible evidence that God had anything to do with the Exodus, and the Ten Plagues?

 

[outhouse]

The "grain of truth" in the stories is thus: the Hebrew-speaking nations (both Israel and Judah) developed from, and separated from, indigenous Canaanite tribes. Israel developed in Iron Age II, during the 9th century BCE, and became a local power, competing with Egypt for economic and political power--not very successfully, but independent enough to survive as a culture and a nation. Judah developed somewhat later (emerging in the 9th century BCE), and enjoyed a relatively brief period as a semi-client state of Assyria, then of Babylon.

Many of the pericopes of the Exodus accounts come from Judah, and reflect the tension between Judah's economic and political dependence upon its northern neighbors and the sometimes-cold, sometimes hot relationship with Egypt, and to some extent with Israel. Indeed, most of the law narratives deal with Judahic concerns, not Israelite. Recent finds of both casually hunted and farm-raised pork in Israel sites demonstrate the prohibition against pork, for instance, was formalized first in Judah, with only limited acceptance in Israel. (The issue of abstinence from pork was not the sole province of Judah, as there are also several Aramaean sites with a complete absence of pork bones.)

Israel was destroyed in 722, its population deported and assimilated within Assyria. Judah attained regional dominance with the destruction of Israel, but wrebelled against the Neo-Babylonian empire and was destroyed in 586. However, unlike Israel, Judah retained cultural cohesiveness during the Babylonian captivity, and was allowed to return shortly after the Persians conquered the Neo-Babylonian empire.

The Hebrews were NEVER in Egypt. There were no plagues, no Exodus, no wandering in the desert, no Conquest, and no United Monarchy.

:highfive:

WOW!


Very well put. :bow:

This has been beaten to death over the years here, and that response was the best too date.


Im glad you didn't get into the monotheistic redaction after the reforms of King Josiah, I think it would have just muddied a perfectly clear stream you created.


I still leave the possibility open for trans-Jordan nomads going in and out of Egypt during good and bad times as a possible historical core, and or a small band of escapee's from a Semitic people enslaved in Egypt, based on refracted memory.

 

[nazz]

The Hebrews were NEVER in Egypt. There were no plagues, no Exodus, no wandering in the desert, no Conquest, and no United Monarchy.

Thankfully real scientists don't make such dogmatic statements. What archaeology can truthfully say is that that there is currently no evidence to support those stories. But it does seem odd to me that these tales were conjured up out of thin air.

 

[outhouse]

Thankfully real scientists don't make such dogmatic statements. What archaeology can truthfully say is that that there is currently no evidence to support those stories. But it does seem odd to me that these tales were conjured up out of thin air.

Im sorry but if you had actually researched and had the possibility to even retain the information in context and unbiased, you would know he is 100% correct.


Archeologist have claimed it is FACT that Israelites evolved from displaced Canaanites. All after 1200 BC. [Isareli Finklelstein]



They did not come up out of thin air, but OP did not ask for a why it was written, only if it was correct.

 

[technomage]

Thankfully real scientists don't make such dogmatic statements.

That statement is not "dogmatic." It's evidence-based.

What archaeology can truthfully say is that that there is currently no evidence to support those stories.

Archaeology goes well beyond that. Try reading some of the actual studies, rather than the popular press renditions.

But it does seem odd to me that these tales were conjured up out of thin air.

That kind of thing happens all the time. Case in point: Arthur of England. At least Roland was based on a historical person.

 

[Jayhawker Soule]

The Hebrews were NEVER in Egypt.

That statement is more than a little silly. You really don't seem to know what you don't know.

 

[Jayhawker Soule]

That statement is not "dogmatic." It's evidence-based

Rubbage. What is your evidence that "The Hebrews were NEVER in Egypt."?

 

[outhouse]

That statement is more than a little silly. You really don't seem to know what you don't know.

Israelites did not exist in a time period, that would have put them in Egypt.



Between 1200 BC and 1000 BC they were nothing but proto Israelites even by Faust apologetic standards.


There is more here then just a absence of evidence they were in Egypt, we have a replacement hypothesis stated to be fact by modern archeology.

[I agree fact is to strong a term here, but it is noted]

 

[nazz]

Rubbage. What is your evidence that "The Hebrews were NEVER in Egypt."?

Yeah, I'd LOVE to see that too!

 

[outhouse]

Rubbage. What is your evidence that "The Hebrews were NEVER in Egypt."?

Mine is the Canaanite origin of the ethnogenesis of proto Israelites.


They used the Canaanite alphabet and deities.


Never mind the slow migration of Semitic to the highlands of Israel you must be hand waving away.




When do we even see a Egyptian trace in their culture? When was the Exodus last compilation date? It all reflects to a T much later traditions in theology far removed from any actual origin for its people.